Practicing Awareness of Microaggresssions

Spending this week listening for microaggressions made me very aware of how often these offenses take place in an educational environment.

The first example took place as I entered the mobile infant classroom at the center where I work. The children were in their seats at the feeding table for morning snack and a teacher was heating up a meal. As she removed it from the microwave she stated “This is disgusting!”   I consider this a microaggression because it is an attack on that child’s family culture. This food, regardless of her opinion is what was prepared by his parents. Even though the children in this room are very young, her tone, facial expression and body language spoke volumes, even if they do not understand the word. I spoke to her about how I felt it was inappropriate and her reply was that she meant it was just too thick. I explained that in a much different tone of voice that is what she should have said.

My second example is a microaggression regarding able-ism. I have shared in the past that my son has a learning disability and an IEP. Earlier this week he was given a quarterly exam that included only questions that tested specifically what is IEP states he should receive accommodations for and none were made. Needless to say he did poorly. Through email and phone conversations with his teacher I have come to find out that she was unaware of this accommodation all year and now was unsure how to interpret what his IEP says. As a fellow educator I am outraged that a teacher can have a student in their class since August and not have taken the time to actually understand his needs. As a parent, I am upset with myself for not being on top of this all year.

My observation experience this week reinforces what Dr. Sue stated in this week’s video, Microaggressions in Everyday Life, that unintentional microaggressions are the most dangerous and educators  can do the great harm. I will be more aware of the comments I make in my classroom. I see the effect of this teacher’s lack of understanding on my son and can imagine the same for the boy at my center if he were to hear comments about his meals on a daily basis.

Resource

Laureate Education Inc. (Producer). (n.d.) Microaggressions in Everyday Life [Video Webcast]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_550963_1%26url%3D

Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

How do people define culture and diversity?

My task this week was to find at least three friends, family members, acquaintances, and /or colleagues to share their definitions of culture and diversity, with at least one person being culturally different from me.

I intended to use several colleagues from work as we have a diverse staff and I thought it would be an interesting conversation to have. I explained that it was for my graduate school work but unfortunately most of my colleagues were very uncomfortable answering the question. I found this quite interesting and do not know the reason for their hesitation. Were they uncomfortable because of the diversity of people sitting at the lunchroom table at the time? Did they think there was a correct or incorrect answer? I explained there was not. Did they believe I or others would judge them for their answer? I will seek the answer to these questions over time.

 I did speak to one colleague who entered the field of Early Education straight out of high school after studying ECE for two years as part of our local poly tech. Next, I spoke to a friend and neighbor who is a Spanish Language teacher and of Cuban decent.  Third I spoke to my daughter, a recent college graduate with degrees in Political Science, International Studies and Spanish.

My colleague defined culture as someone’s ethnicity, race and family values. She saw diversity as the differences in hair and eye color.

My friend defined culture as what we bring to the table. Culture is what makes you a person and is a reflection of your heritage- art, music and food. She teaches her Spanish Language students that we shouldn’t generalize about culture. She teaches about culture to deepen the understanding of the language and open her student world view to make them more accepting. She believes it is easier to learn and appreciate the language if you understand the culture behind it. She shared that a professor once that stated we should not be teaching tolerance but teaching acceptance. Tolerance means I can just barely stand you, who wants to be tolerated?  Her definition of diversity means the differences from other things. Each one of us is different from each other. Even within each of us there are many differences.

My daughter stated that a culture can reflect a specific group of people that have a similar belief system.  Culture is formed because people live in the same location and have shared traditions and world view. Diversity has many levels. The same ethnic group may be diverse do to religious beliefs and geographic location. Every aspect of a person influences diversity. A person’s gender identity, education level, income level, political and religious views and ethnicity contribute to their diversity. Culture forms around those things. There are cultures that form with regard to ethnicity, gender identity and even education level. She also spoke about the cultural influence of language. Language within the United States often reflects the part of country you live in with differences in vocabulary and pronunciation. She also discussed how many of the Romance languages have words that are assigned a gender and how that reflects on the male/ female roles within that culture.

Many of the aspects of culture that I have studied in this course were reflected in the answers I received. The examples given show an understanding that a person’s cultural identity goes much deeper than their ethnic group.  Family values, gender roles, extended family were all touched upon.  Omissions included health care and housing arraignments. These might have been left out because I just asked for a definition and did not want to lead the responses in any way. The answers and non-answers that I received had made me aware that this topic still makes some individual uncomfortable. We obviously need more training in the field of Early Childhood Education to increase the comfort level because if we cannot have the discussion amongst ourselves how are we to have respectful conversations with the parents of our increasingly diverse students. 

My Family Culture

As I imagine the following:

A major catastrophe has almost completely devastated the infrastructure of your country. The emergency government has decided that the surviving citizens will be best served if they are evacuated to other countries willing to take refugees. You and your immediate family are among the survivors of this catastrophic event. However, you have absolutely no input into the final destination or in any other evacuation details. You are told that your host country’s culture is completely different from your own, and that you might have to stay there permanently. You are further told that, in addition to one change of clothes, you can only take 3 small items with you. You decide to take three items that you hold dear and that represent your family culture.

The three items I would take are a family photo album that contained pictures of my husband’s and my childhood, our wedding and of our three children growing up. I would take the Bible I received at my first Women’s Cornerstone retreat. The third thing I would take is the love letter my husband wrote to me when he proposed; yes I have the proposal in writing.

I chose these items after much thought because as I consider not only my families culture but, also the culture of the United States and then contemplate the world of possibilities where my family may wind up living that do not have the same religious freedoms or rights for women, I wanted to have things that would remind me of those freedoms and rights.

I would tell others that the photo albums contained pictures of what our lives were like and how American culture has changed over the years. The photos are a timeline of our growth as a family. I would explain that I wanted the Bible because I am not sure that the country I am going to will have one or be English speaking and my faith and the ability to read God’s word is important to me and my family. I will need my faith to keep me centered as I struggle to learn a new language and customs. Food may actually be my biggest challenge.  Lastly, my husband’s loving words to me as he asked me to marry him showed how much he cared for and honored me as a person. It is my representation of his and my value of respect for women.

If upon arrival I was told that I could only keep one personal item and I would have to give up the rest I would be frustrated by having to make a choice, narrowing my possessions once again. I am hoping that I would be persuasive enough to be able to keep them all or at least tuck the letter and a few pictures into my Bible.

I found this exercise challenging, at first I could think of nothing I wanted to bring. As long as I had my immediate family nothing else would matter to me. I may have been overwhelmed by all the possibilities. Family rosaries, baby books, grandparent’s passports and children’s art work to name a few. Possessions are not my priority, I carry the people I love and memories of those I have lost in my heart. How I treat others and how I want to be treated cannot be represented in objects. I believe the items that I have chosen would convey what I want those that I meet about my family’s culture. Our culture is more about respect for each other and those we interact with than anything else.

When I think of research...

The insight I have gained from the Building Research Competencies course is to be much more aware of the source of the research I am considering. Having gained the understanding that research is influenced by the researcher’s ontology and epistemology will greatly inform how I consider research in the future. I now understand various research methods and have knowledge that allows me to check for bias in a study.

I have a deeper respect for researchers. I have always been fascinated by research and how we learn about human behavior. This course has allowed me to see the many circumstances and situations a researcher must consider in order to conduct equitable research.

 Planning, designing and conducting research with young children involves many considerations. Research involving children has specific ethical guidelines that provide special protections. [See link below.] Designing a study that will allow children to participate and show what they know and feel about their world is complicated. All of this can be accomplished with a well thought out plan and literature review so that when the study is started the researcher is well prepared.

The challenges that I encountered during this course were understanding the differences in some of the closely related research methods and the unfamiliar vocabulary. Looking to other resources for their definitions of terms and reading fellow students discussion board postings helped to clarify my understanding.

My perception of EC professionals has been modified as a result of this course because now I see us as invaluable to the research field. Many of us are quite capable of conducting research with the correct support system (I know we still have much to learn). Additionally, EC professionals can provide researchers with topics we wish we had more information about as we work with our students and families.

Thank you

Thank you to all of my fellow students; it has been a pleasure learning with you and your support and encouragement was invaluable, especially as we all started this course with trepidation. I gained great insight and deeper understanding from each discussion board. I learned valuable information from your blogs. I wish you all success as we continue or educational journey!

Resource

 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP). (n.d.) Special protections for children as research subjects. HHS.gov. Retrieved on from http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/policy/populations/children.html

Research Around the World

I chose to look into research on the Early Childhood Australia website. This year I have a girl in my class whose father is Australian and we spent several days in class learning about that country. The family was kind enough to share cultural books, as well as Australian children books. The class favorite was a book of photos of their classmate and her family in Australia, the photo of her petting a kangaroo was astonishing to them.

Early Childhood Australia publishes the Australasian Journal of Early Childhood (AJEC) it is the longest-running major journal in the early childhood field. (Australasian refers to Australia, New Zealand and the neighboring islands in the South Pacific Ocean).

You need to subscribe to have full access to the journal articles but I was able to access the index and abstracts for the most current issue, Volume 36, published on December 4, 2011. Several of the research studies were topics that are of interest in the United States such as parental views of the influence of television on the development of young children. The Australian study by Garvis & Pendegast found that very often if a TV program is rated educational parents do no further investigating on their own.

Another study by Colmer, Rutherford & Murphy looked at attachment theory and primary caregiving in early childhood settings. Utilizing the primary caregiver as a partner to intervene with families where there are disruptions to the parent – child attachment. I found this idea very interesting and a new way to look at the importance of primary caregiving and I wonder if it would work in child care settings here in the US.

Play is the focus of much research in the US and a comparison study conducted by Reynolds, Stagnitti, & Kidd conducted in Victoria, Australia found that children from low socioeconomic areas that attended school with a play-based curriculum gained more social and language skills than the children that attended a traditional school.

Noteworthy information that I found is that there are a lot of changes happening in early childhood education in Australia this year. As of January 1 of this year, the Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA) is working to implement high –quality early childhood education and care for all children. Australia as a nation has recognized the importance of rich preschool experiences and veiws it as a way to close the widening gap between children who are doing well academically and those that are not. The Education and Care Services National Law Act 2010 was passed with an understanding that a strong cognitive and language base leads to later educational success. May we in the US get our policy makers to develop this understanding!

References

Colmer, K., Rutherford, L., & Murphy, P. (2011). Attachment theory and primary caregiving [Abstract]. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood. 36.

Early Childhood Australia website http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/  

Garvis, S., & Pendergast, D., (2011). Warning-Television viewing may harm your child’s health: Parent perceptions of early Childhood viewing habits [Abstract]. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood. 36.

Reynolds, E., Stagnitti, K. & Kidd, E., (2011). Play, Language and social skills of children attending a play-based curriculum school and a traditionally structured classroom curriculum school in low socioeconomic areas [Abstract]. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood. 36.

Research that Benefits Children and Families—Uplifting Stories

 In 2001 the U.S. Department of Justice implement a project called the Safe Start Initiative. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention started the initiative in the hope of mitigating some of the effects on children exposed to violence. Current estimates indicate that in the United States as many as 10 million children have witnessed or been victims of violence in their homes or communities.  Children’s exposure to violence has been linked to lower academic achievement, as well as, increased anxiety, depression, and anger. Increased alcohol and drug abuse is also a result. The project was divided into several phases.

 In 2011, The RAND Corporation researched the effectiveness of phase two of the project and found positive results. Phase two involved the implementation and evaluation of a range of interventions to help children and families cope with the effects of children’s exposure to violence at 15 sites throughout the country.

Because of many obstacles in collecting data, forming strong conclusions was not possible. What was learned for future implementation, is the type of obstacles practitioners using these types of interventions will face and how to modify their approaches.

Despite difficulty in data collection researchers were able to identify that many of the programs were successful in establishing their individual program goals. The programs were able to develop procedures to increase identification of children exposed to violence. Also, communication and coordination among service providers was established. Services gaps for children and their families were addressed through interagency and communitywide partnerships. Overall awareness of the effects on children who are exposed to violence was increased, as well as, the need to respond to it with effective interventions.

As we are continuously reminded of the violence in our communities and schools by daily news reports this is an example of research providing effective techniques and increasing community resources to help reduce some of the consequences for the children and families exposed to the violence. May we someday be able to stop all the violence!

As a student learning about research and feeling slightly overwhelmed by the prospect of creating a research simulation, I was reassured to find out that this project was still considered successful and useful information was gathered despite the researchers having difficulty with data collection.

References

Jaycox, L. H., Hickman, L. J., Schultz, D., Barnes-Proby, D., Setodji, C.M., Harris, R., Acosta, J.D., & Francois, T. (2011). National evaluation of safe start promising approaches: Assessing program outcomes. Retrieved from The RAND Corporation website: http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/technical_reports/2011/RAND_TR991-1.sum.pdf

U.S. Department of Justice: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. (2001, April). Children’s exposure to violence: The safe start initiative. Retrieved from https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/fs200113.pdf

My Personal Research Journey

The topic for the research simulation I have chosen is shyness in preschool age children. Throughout my teaching career I have often had shy children in my class and done my best to help them develop skills that allow them to feel more comfortable interacting with their peers and the other adults at school. Through my studies I have been learning about the importance of social/emotional development and its connections to all other areas of development. More importantly the effects of not having appropriate social awareness skills can have on emotion health in middle childhood and beyond (Berger, 2009).

This topic is of particular interest to me this year because of a child I have in my class. She joined our class in September two mornings a week and has just begun to answer my direct questions with one or two word answers within the last month or so.  She spoke to my co-teacher for the first time this week. At home the only person she really interacts with is her mother.  She never talks to the other children, but will play alongside them. None of the shy children I have worked with in the past have taken this long to begin communicating in the classroom so it has made this topic one of great interest to me.

The simulation process so far has reduced my anxiety level a bit. Knowing that we are going to work on this in smaller steps has been helpful. Learning that there are several ways to conduct research that is valid is also helpful because some research designs seemed very overwhelming to me. I am still concerned about formulating the research questions for my study as the topic is very broad in my thought processes right now and I am still unsure of the direction I want to go in.

One thing that I found very helpful when looking for literature on my topic of study using the Walden library was to use a variety of search terms in the database fields. Using shyness AND preschool children produced different results than using reducing shyness AND preschool children. I entered the same terms in different databases which provided me with different results also increasing my choice of research to learn from. 

Any helpful tips on locating quality research are greatly appreciated. If a fellow student is doing a closely related topic I would love to share resources that I find with you as they may be more helpful for your line of inquiry than mine.

References

Berger, K. S. (2009). The developing person through childhood (5th ed.). New York, NY: Worth Publishers.